Little Lights
by fox whispers
Summary: Mourning the loss of her sister, Kagome distances herself unable to move on. Until one day a man mistakes her for her deceased sister, bringing them closer as they grieve over the losses and trials in their lives, readying themselves to move on and learn how to truly live.


_**AN;**_

_Hi there, I just wanted to say thank you for reading my story. I don't own InuYasha or any affliated characters. This is my secondary account that I've just started and I want to post my more serious pieces here. _

_For lemons and lols my other account is Oh Jiru. I'll update my information to confirm there, also. This is an alternate version of a piece I'm working on in 3rd person called __**Where the Lines Blur**_.

_The premise is basically the same, but this feels more whole to me. I'm open to suggestions and critiques as well as anything else you'd like to say. And once again, thank you for reading and feedback is always appreciated, never expected._

_**The Reflection of Lonely Hearts**_

A comfortable silence, that's what I imagined as I lay still in my bed. I was freshly twenty without so much as a penny to my name. My mother thought when my sister passed away, that I would have pressed on and thrived; if nothing else to please Kikyo's spirit.

Instead I couldn't support my stresses and caved inwardly, becoming no more differential than the blades of grass. I blended in to my surroundings, hoping I could become a better person, but I was a cast away.

I was lost on some unknown shore, smothering beneath the turbulent wake that had whisked me away. Sota had encouraged me to believe in something - _anything_ - but I held onto memories instead, submerging myself into their depths.

This day was about the same as all the other blurs of light and day. The wounds were still raw, salted with whatever bad experience I cared to remember. Kikyo deserved better than to have pity, and I wanted nothing more than to give her satisfaction.

When I rose, I looked in _our_ mirrior, staring at a shared face and body. I saw _her_ every time I looked at myself, a burden which no one else had to bear. I wondered, as I brushed the knots from my hair, if that was who my family saw in their grieving.

"Kagome, poor girl," they often said, "She probably has a lot to deal with when people talk to her thinking she's someone else."

Damn that idea all to hell and back if you want, it was true. I was wandering aimlessly through my life over those few months and refused to let my family suffer just by sight. I moved out, worked like a dog and paid my own way the best I could.

Hell, part of me still haunts that old shrine house, wishing it could take me somewhere I'd dreamt of. Kikyo traveled, fell in love, experienced what it meant to be a woman, where as I was still stuck in the greenery.

When all the money was gone, and the job not sufficient, I swore I would escape myself and paint a vision of a new world to live in. Temporary, or otherwise, I wanted to feel again; anything but this disheartening numbness that I couldn't overcome.

The end result was something that I wanted more than anything, and it was to accept Kikyo's death and move on. Her lover, Sesshomaru, had and he had found comfort in a woman named Kagura. Disgusted, I cut all ties with him in haste.

I was angry, but what good does it do to chastise the mourning?

If anyone understood, I'd be happy to share and let everything inside of me spill on the floor. I'd rather have that release that let it build until I ruptured. Today, at least, I figured I could drag myself on the other side of the city to pray for my sister's slumber to be peaceful.

Daddy and Jii-chan were buried in urns beside hers. That's why I suppose it was so hard to let go. Everyone I held dear to my heart was disappearing and grasping them was nearly impossible. The thought of moving on and forgetting their faces and their laughter bothered me the most.

Pulling on a coat and some of Kikyo's jeans, I waved away the thought and left my shoddy little apartment. It rested above a small bakery, run by an elderly woman and her ailing husband. I don't know how long they would be around, but they had been all too good to me.

I grabbed a cherry tart and went on my way, eaten whole by the wintry winds meanderning through the early morning light. The cusp of dawn was always busy, bustling with life and it made me feel less alone to be swarmed by hundreds of suits and ties, chatting on their cellulars about meetings and mistresses.

It didn't matter to me how corrupt someone's life was as long as they had a happy one. Morbid way of thinking, I know, but honestly I didn't have much else to rely on. Shoving on, through the maze of neons and glistening high rises, I took the cramped train to Shinjuku and headed towards my old family home.

It rested like a castle, a top a hill hidden behind archaic pillars and torii. It took all my strength to head up the thousands of stairs. Kikyo and I had held hands, bracing ourselves for the ascension many a times.

It took my breath as well as my will when I reached the apex. The flat stoned grounds lead to a shrine house and a small family graveyard at the base of the Goshinboku. It was our precious tree. It grew wildly, nourished on the remains of our loved ones.

I knelt and prayed, cried, fisted the pavement. None of my actions would bring them back, but it helped ease the crushing weight in my heart. Mama had been at work, and Sota in his class, so I lingered outside, waiting for my hands to freeze in the cold.

The first snow was getting ready to fall, and I was hopelessly wanting it to bury me until I was too stiff to move. I remembered that I liked smoking cigarettes during that point in my life, and I had one lit as the breeze kicked my long hair.

I finally found it in me to leave, and saw a man panting as he surmounted the long flight of stairs. His hair was long, almost completely gray and his eyes were like sunken in holes, pale as the rest of his face. He looked ill and I frowned as he inspected the shrine until he saw me.

I flicked my cigarette into the old flower pot, since my mother was a terrible gardener, and watched his emotions cut across his face in confusion. He held a bundle of bound, white crysanthemums and I furrowed my brows.

After a moment, he began moving towards me blindly. I grabbed my purse and shuffled for my house key just in case I needed it. When he got close, I could see the weary lines around his eyes and the chapped edges of his lips. His cheeks were kissed by the cold and he seemed so frail.

My inspection was evenly matched as his arms crashed around me, pulling me into him with all of the vigor in his bones. "I-I heard that you had passed. I'm so thankful that you're still alright, Kikyo-chan." The man breathed, exhaling jaggedly against my shoulder.

I was startled, I know he saw the hurt left on my face and I pushed him back gently. "No sir, she passed a few months ago. I'm her sister, Higurashi Kagome." I bowed delicately, willing my heart to stop aching.

His face fell slack as he waved the flowers in his hands. "I'm sorry, I never knew she had a sister. I didn't stay at the hospital, I just had treatments here and there."

I'll never forget that pained expression; full of anger, unrequited love, yearning. "What's your name?" I asked, chewing at my lip as if it were a support system.

"Ito InuYasha," He responded half heartedly. He was a patient at the same hospital in downtown where my sister had been when she found out she had cancer. She had stayed there for the majority of the last year of her life, suffering through the system until she shut down. "Is there anyway you can give these to _her_?"

Holding out the wilting flowers, InuYasha's hands shook; from nerves or the cold, I still don't know. "You can give them to her, if you want." I forced a smile. I never knew that helping someone else would make me feel like that. I wasn't drowning in that moment. As I walked him towards the Goshiboku, I felt stronger knowing that I wasn't alone.

At the tree we prayed and he laid the flowers on her grave, casting a melancholy glance at her name and the gifts that were left from the family. "It must be really hard for you." InuYashas said abruptly, raising his heterochromatic eyes to mine. "I couldn't imagine having to go through seeing someone else when you looked in a god damn mirror."

Freezing, I closed my eyes and felt that familiar prickle of hot moisture. I couldn't contain it, it was far too powerful for my eyes to hold and it ran down my cheeks, creating steam as it hit the wintry air.

InuYasha waved his has lanky hands in front of me, panic stricken in his attempts to calm me down. He flushed and lowered his head when it didn't stop, and I merely knelt down, holding myself in the presence of my family.

"I-I didn't mean... I'm fucking stupid." He rasped, grimacing as he brushed a hand through his thinning hair. "I'm just going to go since I'm making you feel worse than you probably already do."

Reaching up, I grabbed his bony wrist through his red jacket and pulled him downwards. My bloodshot eyes probably made him pity me, but he stayed with me during my weak moments. "You have nothing to feel sorry for. It wasn't your fault that she got sick, or that we were born together, or that you wanted to say goodbye. I still haven't. I don't know if I can. I loved her so much that it's like part of me is gone." I sniveled, audaciously smiling at the words that I chose.

InuYasha shuddered at the wind and pulled a toboggan over his head, diving deeper into his coat. "She probably didn't know I loved her. She was seeing my older brother. He came to see her a lot and I came with him sometimes. She just seemed so sad, I wanted to make her feel better and when he was at work, I'd stop by and bring her flowers - even though I told her they ewre from him." His shoulders shrugged as he looked at me hopelessly.

"I never knew that Sesshomaru had any relatives. He just seemed so _alone_. I know that he had his daughter, but that's all I knew of. I stopped talking to him when started seeing that other woman. I was so angry that he had left Kikyo behind, like everyone else did." I said, running a finger over the cool cobble beneath my legs.

InuYasha crossed his arms and made a sound close to a _hmph_. "He threw himself into work. His life hasn't been the same and it did a number on his daughter. She loved your sister. I think everyone did. I normally don't talk to people like this." He flittered, shaking his head as he began to stand.

I followed in suit, figuring it would be better to move along and get back home before I bawled on my mother and see the emotions hit her face when she saw me. "I don't talk about it. I think that's the problem." I responded quietly, shedding a soft smile as I stared at his beaten up tennis shoes.

"You smell like smoke." InuYasha pointed out, "I think that's what did it." He said as a matter of factly, and it left me curious and a little taken a back.

"Why would you say that?" I asked, escorting him down the monstrous mound of stairs. His hair blew about his face as he scrunched his nose, warming his hands in his jean pockets.

"My father smokes. He started when my mother passed and that always reminds me of home. It's such a horrible thing to tie to comfort, but it always reminds me of being a kid and having closeness, before I got sick."

My heart fell to my knees.

Absently, I reached for his hand and helped him down the last couple of steps. Whether he admitted it or not, I knew that he was exhausted and drained. It was the same thing that I'd seen with Kikyo. At a certain point, simple tastes became too hard to handle on her own and her pride kept her from allowing any assistance.

The weather was making my bones sore as the morning drew darker and more ominous. The impending snowfall was making my sinuses throb and I had a hunch that he was starting to feel ill. "My daddy smoked, too. I don't do it often, but it reminds me of him too."

The smile that he shot me rocked me to my very core. I don't know what it was about that enigma that made me feel like it was just for me and no one else. That day brought more peace than any of the therapy that I had endured.

He was the only person that I gravitated to and understood. I didn't know that he would eventually tear the hole in my heart completely open. The choices we make as people, in trusting and loving and moving on; they are all subjective to what we feel is right.

Everyone's version of right and wrong are blurred like smuded ink. InuYasha waved at me as he headed down the opposing direction I'd found mysef going. I didn't know at the time if I'd see him again, but the pit of my stomach told me otherwise.

I had just hoped that he saw _me_, even through the same face that Kikyo and I had shared.


End file.
